Instagram marketing is one of the most lethal tools to build and market your business this decade. A lot of people swear by email or direct mail for getting clients and retargeting, but Instagram marketing will set your business on fire with just a few advanced techniques.
How is it better than traditional tools? That question is answered in this article because it’s dedicated to showing you the best Instagram marketing hacks of the decade. These hacks will get you more clients and more money this week, so start today. The only question is how hungry are you.
Don’t Forget About the Basics
It’s easy to get caught up in the advanced techniques of Instagram marketing. There are so many tips for social media sales and marketing that you might forget the basics if you’re not careful.
Here are three keys to keep in mind when you market your business in general:
- Who is your market?
- Where are they?
- Put Your Message Right in Front of Them
In Instagram marketing terms, you need to know everything about your clients before you send them any kind of sales message. Second, finding out where they are is simply knowing the hashtags your target audience is using. Lastly, post regularly to those hashtags and create conversations in your posts and others to create more traction.
How to Get to Know Someone Famous on Instagram
You can virtually meet whoever you want using Instagram marketing techniques like the ones above.
Disclaimer: I’m not recommending you to become a stalker in any shape. If you do, you will most likely get arrested.
Instagram marketing does require some form of intelligence gathering before you start reaching out. I’m sure you’ve all heard stories of how people finally got their childhood idols to talk to them by sending them a letter and a fruit basket or something like that. Well, the game hasn’t changed that much since then, but now you can do it on your phone and be just as effective.
If you’re in business want to attract some high-profile clients, like celebrities, you can obviously start direct messaging them. However, this is not the best way to make a good impression. It’s better to employ a less direct Instagram marketing tactic, like just being social and allowing the relationship to blossom by commenting on their posts with an intelligent and thought-provoking piece of content.
Think about it like approaching someone at a bar or party. If you go up to a random person and spout out sentence fragments and overwhelm your target with things that are awesome about yourself, you’ll simply come off as repulsive. What you want to become is attractive.
Flip the script for a minute and imagine that someone comes up to you that you didn’t know but ended up talking to them for awhile. What did they do? Did they harass you or tell you all the awesome things about them? No way!
Most likely they happened to overhear something you said that was thought-provoking and enhanced the conversation. This is what you need to do when they post something. Rinse and repeat.
Add/Manage Multiple Accounts
This section is for businesses that want to spread their message faster. This is not a good tactic to meet your ideal clients or influencers in this space. Whatever you do to meet people, you want to avoid spamming your audience as much as possible.
If you do choose to add and manage multiple accounts, use them with your best discretion. Click the link to understand more about your options and strategies when you use multiple accounts.
See All the Posts You’ve Liked
Create your own simple CRM with this Instagram marketing hack. When you’re scouring the hashtags you like, you can like the companies and influencers you’re after and reach out to them at a later date. It’s not better than Salesforce, but it will still keep you organized and will more convenient than a spreadsheet.
Remember, the benefit of Instagram marketing is to allow you to be anywhere and still reach out to your target market. This is a huge reason why Instagram is still the fastest growing social media network on the planet.
When you go through your liked posts, leave a comment on the post that inspires a conversation with them. This helps their account tremendously, especially if they are an influencer, because the more engagement they get naturally, the more they can charge for their shoutouts and endorsements.
Instagram marketing is a huge money maker for the ones that know how to use it. If you help those people make more money they will be more apt to converse with you over the direct message.
Instagram Marketing with Professional Direct Messages
Most people don’t know how to direct message to their target audience. They spend way too much time trying to create the perfect pitch that’s clever and stands out. This is the same as creating a pick-up-line for a pretty girl in a bar.
How often do those rehearsed lines work for you? Most likely they don’t work at all.
Here’s what you should do instead…
- Establish a routine of reaching out to the people you want to talk to.
- Comment on a variety of their posts for at least a week before you reach out with a direct message.
- Expect to not get a response and keep commenting and liking their posts.
- You need to also talk to the other commenters on each post. If you have value to give to the influencer, then you should have something to offer to the commenters too.
- After another week, send the influencer another message.
- These messages should be somewhat direct. Don’t waste their time, and tell them straight out that you would like to work with them.
- If they say no, then you know where you stand. You can then put them in the message every once in a while pile and send them useful information.
- This will show them that you’re persistent and not annoying. The more value you give them the more they will feel like you can help them.
Scheduling Tools
Using a scheduling tool like Agorapulse or Buffer will surely get your more followers and more clicks on your links. The problem you will run into is if you use this software for spam-like Instagram Marketing.
How many times have you seen Instagram accounts where the intention is to clearly sell your products? Too many times right. Instagram has a great function geared towards selling products called Instagram Business, but you have to realize why people are on Instagram, to begin with.
Most people are there to be entertained or to entertain others. Those that use it to sell their products must know this. It’s not a bad idea to sell products on Instagram, but creating entertaining and educational material should be your number one priority if you wish to capture the attention of your audience long-term.
Create a Swipe File For Instagram Posts
A lot of my clients talk about writer’s block when it comes to Instagram marketing. To create amazing branded content with Instagram marketing is something that either takes a lot of skill or the money to hire someone that does know what they are doing.
Don’t get frustrated, Instagram does make it easy, but to get each picture looking professional and consistent with your other material is a skill that requires practice. Another layer to this is using video. Sometimes you can create amazing images and captions but video can be another beast altogether.
Keeping tabs on the Instagram accounts you admire and creating your own style with the templates you choose is a great way to stay motivated. All great copywriters uses templates for ideas, and Instagram marketers like you should too.
The Only Way to Link Out on Instagram
Since there is only one way to link outside of Instagram you have to be creative with each post to get your audience to click on your profile link. You only get one which makes things difficult, but not impossible for a savvy marketer like yourself.
Here’s a tip…
Master the call-to-action in the caption and at the end of your videos. This is no easy task with the 1-minute restriction on videos, but if you do a good job with your other content, then you won’t have any problems.
Last Tip… Don’t Sell the Product, Sell Yourself
In any sales or marketing endeavor, your customers will decide or not decide to go with you, sometimes regardless of the product. Does your product work? If it does, then it’s entirely up to you to sell it.
Instagram is a great place to make money, but if you remind your audience of a QVC commercial you’re dead in the water. What you’re looking for is brand authenticity.
Check out these Instagram marketers. Warning you might not like the content, but these people make tons of money every year from their accounts or by using their accounts to market their business. Follow what they do. Most of the time they aren’t selling anything on their channels except the dream.
For more information on the ins and outs of Instagram marketing, click the link in this sentence.
